Katherine Pierce is a wily sort, a woman who has made an art form of staying alive. We doubt she will look at the forced relinquishment of Elena’s body as a death sentence, so much as a setback. After all, now that she’s hopped bodies once, who’s to say she won’t be able to do it again? This seems particularly likely given how many Travelers there have been hanging around Mystic Falls. Katherine’s daughter, Nadia, was the first, but the number of the mysterious nomadic witches in and around Mystic Falls seems to be steadily growing. A Traveler was the one who performed the spell that allowed Katherine to hop into Elena’s body in the first place. Will they do it again to bring Elena back, and allow Katherine to jump into someone else’s body?

There’s also the complication of Nadia to consider. Last time we checked, she was in even more dire straits than her dear old mom. Tyler bit her in last week’s episode, starting the slow and agonizing death that comes when a vampire is bitten by a werewolf. As far as we know, the only sure for a werewolf’s bite is Klaus blood, but we doubt he will come running back to Mystic Falls. Might there be another way to slow or stop the werewolf venom? Perhaps involving Katherine’s possession of Nadia’s body? This seems a strange solution, but if anyone can fight off werewolf venom, it’s Katherine Pierce. Even if this isn’t the catalyst for Katherine sharing a body with her daughter, we think this might be the solution the show reaches. After all, Nadia has offered her body before — and we don’t see anyone else jumping at the opportunity to share mortal vessels with Katherine Pierce.

To be honest, our top reason for thinking Katherine might pop into someone else’s body is because we don’t think the show would kill her off in such an anticlimactic, unceremonious fashion. Unless this week’s episode seriously pulls out all the stops — and, to be fair, with promised flashbacks to Nadia’s life searching for her mother, it certainly could — we doubt Katherine will die in a mid-season episode. Or maybe the show is just luring us into a false sense of security? There was so much promotion for the 100th episode and Katherine’s presumed death in it. It would be kind of genius for the show to shock us with Katherine’s death when we least expected it.

Do you think Katherine will possess someone else? Do you think she will die — for real? Sound off in the comments below!

Catch the next episode of The Vampire Diaries on Thursday, March 6 at 8 p.m. ET on the CW.

Kayti Burt is a contributing writer for Wetpaint Entertainment with a penchant for all things pop culture. Follow her on Twitter and Google+!